Meet the Main Street Director, Laurie Toups

Toups is no stranger to the community. Growing up between New Orleans and Gulfport, she attended school in both locations. She moved to New Orleans in 1995, where her creative visualizations were implemented in her work as director of both the French Quarter Festival and North Rampart Main Street, among other endeavors.

Toups returned to the Coast as the city’s Main Street Director, and is working with her board to secure more retail businesses, public art, and upper-floor housing that combines the residential and business community into one creative economy. "A lot of things are done in different places that people don't think about trying in their own hometown, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to bring those ideas and experience here. Not everything is going to work that worked there, because Gulfport is unique," said Toups. "So glad, so grateful to be back on the Coast, and I felt like the Coast opened its arms up to me."

Toups is back home now and ready to turn downtown into a more livable, walkable and accessible place.

"I want people to feel that Gulfport is that funky little place to go, and downtown is where it is to be," she said.